Verified by 
Key points
- Research into children who start reading for pleasure at an early age, shows notable brain enhancement.
- Reading for pleasure between 2 and 9 supports healthy development in a variety of brain regions.
- Reading rather than screen time is connected to better cognitive, mental health, and behavioural outcomes.
- Reading offers children a proven way to reduce anxiety and depression.
In 2023, researchers in the United Kingdom, at the universities of Warwick and Cambridge, and others in China at the University of Fudan, published results of the data they analyzed from over 10,000 teens gathered from the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development cohort in the United States.
Their focus was not academic. They were not trying to see who read the earliest and tested the best. They studied children who read for pleasure and how it improved their brain function if they began between two and nine years old, started after that time, or did not read for pleasure at all. The study was cross-sectional. The researchers collected data from many different teens at a single point in time. They were from diverse socio-economic backgrounds in families that had a whole range of educational levels.
The study was longitudinal. They assessed the over 10,000 adolescent participants over a series of years. Furthermore, a “2-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis for potential causal interference was also performed.” While the study revealed “moderately significant heritability of early” reading for pleasure “with considerable contribution from environments,” the brain differences were found to be causally connected to those children who started reading for pleasure early in life.
This major dataset showed that children who start reading early, for the sheer pleasure of it, develop brain structure in such a way that they improve their thinking skills, mental health, and conduct. They show signs of reduced stress, as well as reduced tendencies towards aggressive behaviours such as bullying.
Imagine children excited to go to school because their peers are joyfully turning the pages of stories rather than seeking opportunities to target, humiliate, and harm. Imagine for teachers a classroom where their students have healthy brains, facility with thinking and learning, and a capacity to self-regulate both internalizing and externalizing behaviours. In other words, their students aren’t withdrawing, disengaging, feeling anxiety and depression. Their students aren’t aggressively lashing out or breaking rules.
Twelve hours a week of reading for pleasure, started early in life, could potentially transform today’s classrooms into spaces where education comes alive and mental health issues are significantly reduced. It might even save many teachers from burnout.
The more children read early, the less time they are on screens which has been shown to change the way their brains develop. The early readers for pleasure showed distinct improvements in their brain development as documented on brain scans. The impacts were notably positive for children’s verbal learning, memory, speech development, and overall academic performance. The impacts were also notable for improvements in mental health and behaviour.
The Research
The Warwick, Cambridge, and Fudan researchers put their study into the context of an extensive meta-analysis of other studies. What they add to our understanding is the significant connection between early reading for pleasure and enhanced brain health versus the correlation between screen time and “multiple psychopathological problems” ranging from externalizing behaviours like bullying, and internalizing ones like depression and anxiety, and learning challenges like ADHD.
Not only are structures in the brain linked specifically to reading impacted, other brain regions, such as “the middle frontal, temporal pole, circular insula, left superior frontal” and more, were positively associated with cognitive or thinking performance. Just as important, the positive impact on so many brain regions were also associated with reducing “psychopathology scores.” If we want children and teens to succeed at academics and avoid the sometimes lifetime curse of mental illness and mental disorders then encouraging and facilitating early reading for pleasure is one critical intervention. The improved health of these brain regions didn’t just slightly improve cognition and mental health outcomes, they “significantly mediated” them.
To put these research insights more forcefully, specific brain regions impacted by early reading for pleasure, among the many identified, “play critical roles in cognitive function.” This is vitally important to lay a foundation for learning that underpins academic success. At the same time, these findings show “abnormal pathological dysfunctions/defects and alterations in these brain regions are significantly related to multiple psychiatric and mental health disorders.”
There is that powerful word once again “significantly.” It is not used lightly by scientific researchers who are cautious to overstate their findings.To recap, if we prioritize children’s early reading for pleasure and keep them away from screen time as their brain is developing intensely, we not only give them an enhanced foundation to academically achieve, but we may also help protect them from the immense suffering and loss frequently connected to mental health disorders.
Early Reading for Pleasure is Protective
Research shows that children who spend time with care-givers reading in early childhood suffer less from social-emotional problems. Children who are reading for pleasure, rather than interacting with screen content, suffer less depression and aggression. They disengage less. They have less anxiety. They are less likely to develop ADHD. They don’t bully as much or break rules as frequently.
Why? Is one activity morally better than the other? Is reading the ethical choice and screen time a "bad" choice? Not according to this research. Because reading for pleasure enhances many brain regions associated with thinking and emotions and mood and behaviours, it is a prescription for success and mental health.
If children cannot see properly, we are quick to get them glasses. If children cannot hear effectively, we get them hearing aids. When they cannot walk, we get them crutches or a wheelchair. If children are struggling to think clearly, problem-solve, develop social-emotional intelligence, behave in regulated, empathic ways, we need to get them reading for pleasure, the sooner the better.
If children are struggling to avoid acting with cruelty and aggression, if they struggle to be motivated, engaged, and happy, we need to supply them with books so that they can learn to read for pleasure. We need to surround them with caregivers who read to them, show them pictures, say words out loud, tell stories until they reach that moment when children are keen to read for pleasure on their own. These children become teens who read rather than are addicted to screens.
If we are a society that intervenes when eyes need support, when ears need enhancement, when legs require rehabilitation, recovery, or assistance, then the research encourages us to become a society that prevents pressing mental health issues, strives for all to have educational and career success, and reduces bullying and aggression by intervening on behalf of brains and brain development.
As one of the study’s researchers, Cambridge psychiatry professor Barbara Sahakian explains: “Reading isn’t just a pleasurable experience – it’s widely accepted that it inspires thinking and creativity, increases empathy and reduces stress. But on top of this, we found significant evidence that it’s linked to important developmental factors in children, improving their cognition, mental health, and brain structure, which are cornerstones for future learning and well-being.”
References
Sun, Y., Sahakian, B., Langley, C., Yang, A., Jiang, Y., Kang, J., Zhao, X., Li, C., Cheng, W., & Feng, J. (2023). Early-initiated childhood reading for pleasure: associations with better cognitive performance, mental well-being and brain structure in young adolescence. Psychological Medicine.
